Ya Boy Kongming!

World Premiere | Out Of Competition 
 
Japan, 2025, 118’, Japanese

Directed by: Shibue Shuhei
Screenplay: Nemoto Nonji
Editing: Usuki Eri
Music Producer: Saimi Yasumasa
Producers: Takaki Yuka, Yao Kasumi
Cast: Mukai Osamu, Kamishiraishi Moka, Kamio Fuju, Utaha, Miyase Ryubi, Mandy Sekiguchi, Win Morisaki, Huwie Ishizaki, ELLY, Nagaoka Ryosuke, &TEAM, Dean Fujioka

Date of First Release in Territory: April 25th, 2025
 
The Japanese film industry has never really done musicals in the Broadway and Hollywood meaning of the word, with actors breaking into song in streets, houses and anywhere other than a stage.

Films centering around the music business, however, are another matter, with many examples, but few have devoted as much screen time to actual performances than Ya Boy Kongming! The Movie. Based on a TV drama that was in turn inspired by a manga, this live-action film traces the improbable musical career of the title protagonist, a famous Chinese strategist of the chaotic Three Kingdoms period (220-280 AD) who ends up in modern-day Japan.

Directed by Shibue Shuhei, a prolific maker of music videos and TV commercials, and scripted by Nemoto Nonji, who also wrote the script for the TV drama, the film assumes acquaintance with the Ya Boy Kongming! world, as well as the outlines of Three Kingdoms history. Those ignorant of both may blank on the references to the legendary genius of the real-life Zhuge Liang (181-234 AD), a.k.a. Kongming, as well to why he is advising Tsukimi Eiko (Kamishiraishi Moka), an up-and-coming pop singer, and hanging out with Kobayashi (Moriyama Mirai), the owner of a lounge where Eiko performs and a Three Kingdoms otaku (“obsessed fan”).

The film’s basic plot trajectory, thankfully, is simple enough: Three major record labels – Key Time, SSS and V-EX – agree to stage a big “music battle festival” with artists from every label competing. Backed by Kongming’s strategic smarts and fervent moral support, Eiko is selected as Key Time’s singer in the final “newcomer” slot. Meanwhile, the spunky Shin (the single-named Utaha), whom we first see as a street busker, is chosen by the SSS agency as their “newcomer” through the machinations of Sima Jun (Kamio Fuju), a wily show biz strategist and Shin’s brother. He also happens to be a descendant of Kongming’s Three Kingdoms rival Sima Zhongda.

But as the date of the big concert approaches, Eiko and Kobayashi start to realize that all is not well with Kongming. A reincarnation of his 3rd Century namesake, he slips into dreams of a temple gate in the midst of a bamboo forest. Kongming comes to fear that if he hears Eiko sing, he will pass through the gate – and be in the land of the dead.

The solution, Eiko says, is for her to stop singing, period. But Kongming, who believes her voice holds the key to the universal peace he has long been preaching, won’t let her.

As this conflict plays out, with much agonizing on both sides, the big concert begins. Acts both fictional and real appear, including the red-hot boy band &TEAM. After each performance, fans hold up light sticks with a color to indicate their favorite – pink for Key Time. The visual spectacle of thousands of waving lights and cheering fans outdoes anything but perhaps the gaudier concerts of Taylor Swift.

The music is mostly high-volume, fast-tempo J-pop, with dancers, singers and rappers all going full throttle from beginning to end. Also, the plot acquires twists and turns, as we learn about the behind-the-scenes stratagems of the two contending strategists, Of course, it all comes down to Eiko versus Shin, that is if Eiko is willing to send her biggest fan to the next world.

Will Kongming go out in a burst of glory? Not to say, but Ya Boy Kongming! The Movie is an entertaining and energizing antidote to the blues. Unless you need an ear cleaning with Muddy Waters after nearly 40 minutes of straight J-pop.

 

 

MUKAI Osamu, actor
TAKAGI Yuka, producer